transsexual

Stillness and Solace
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Stillness and Solace

Victor Frankenstein’s monster stands before the fellow traveller, towering above them.

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“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever” (Shelley).  The monster does not look at his new acquaintance when he speaks; his eyes remain on the looming glaciers around them, glowing in the moonlight. His words, which linger heavily in the chilled air like their warm breath, are met with silence. The traveller peers at the figure next to them: “flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which (he) was born” (Stryker). Each carefully selected piece of skin and bone fits together to form a uniquely beautiful, abstract puzzle. They had only just met, and yet, each stitch woven into the bodies of the traveller and the creature was spooled from the same thread- a rope of pain caused from society’s purposeful ostracism.

Finally, the traveller interrupts the comfortable, contemplative stillness. 

“Like (you), I am too often perceived as less than fully human due to the means of my embodiment; …my exclusion from human community fuels a deep and abiding rage that I, like (you), direct against the conditions in which I must struggle to exist” (Stryker). 

The monster did not have the chance to respond, and the traveller would never hear his response, both robbed of the conversation and solace.

Victor Frankenstein shot his creation- once in the head and once in the heart- leaving the traveller alone again.

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Transsexual Gender Euphoria

(image description: an illustration of a person with a teal, cactus-like spiky head between two islands on a black ocean against a pink sky. the border, framed in wavy spiked lines, says “GOD’S FAVORITE TRANSSEXUAL” in black bubbly text on a yellow background.
this art belongs to Leo Fox, from his trans comic series Boy Island! you can get this image as a sticker at https://store.silversprocket.net/products/gods-favorite-transexual-by-leo-fox :] )

Since before I started medical transition over a year and a half ago, gaining testosterone-linked physical traits through HRT has been a goal of mine. And recently having the ability to “pass” as cisgender has been such a wild ride in a very gender-affirming way (though I still haven’t gotten used to times when I am perceived and treated as cis male in a social context, such as getting pulled in for a strong dap up after finishing a group project). 

One thing that I have always been excited about was my “passability” opening up new avenues for me to explore queering my gender presentation. There was always something appealing to me about presenting physically masculine with more body hair and a deeper voice while having the freedom to wear whatever I wanted, like skirts with boots, and feeling confident wearing tight shirts without getting dysphoric about my chest. The physical traits I display are also helpful with decoding patterns of comportment and taking up space that I grew up socialized into as a “girl,” because now instead of fearing gender dysphoria from expressing emotions and being particular about the way my body moves, I feel like I am actively participating in throwing off binary norms, rather than taking up as much space as possible and acting closed off and invulnerable as embodied “masculine” stereotypes often go. 

I recognize of course that presenting my gender the queer way I do is something that I have a privilege to do, as I am able to safely be out as transmasculine; I believe not every single trans person should be required to revolutionize trans embodiment and destroy gender norms whenever they can possibly be perceived. No one should be held to that standard, and critiquing those who can find safety within the gender binary is unproductive to the goal of universally embracing trans embodiments.

I believe my medical transition and performed gender, and the euphoria I experience in my trans body, demonstrate Susan Stone’s theory on the transsexual body’s ability to “generate new and unpredictable dissonances which implicate entire spectra of desire” (“The ‘Empire’ Strikes Back”). Her and Judith Butler’s description of the erotic dissonance of the butch lesbian is something I find strong connection to, especially after coming back around to identifying as a lesbian in how inherently queer and “everyone-but-cis-masculinities” my sexuality has been throughout my 8 years of being out. Butch identity and my transmasculine body just feel like they go hand in hand now, and doing what I call “coming home to lesbianism” has been such a euphoric experience for me recently, one that I feel comfortable describing as transsexual gender euphoria.

The Alchemist’s Anger
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The Alchemist’s Anger

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The Rebis

Alchemical perfection — An Alchemist’s Magnum Opus

After one has gone through the stages of putrefaction and purification, separating opposing qualities, those qualities are united once more in what is sometimes described as the divine hermaphrodite, a reconciliation of spirit and matter, a being of both male and female qualities as indicated by the male and female head within a single body. The sun and moon correspond to the male and female halves, just as the Red King and White Queen are similarly associated.

Upon reading Susan Stryker’s “My Words to Victor Frankenstein” I reached enlightenment. She blessed me with an epiphany that had evaded the capability of language.

She starts by breaking down the monstrosity of the transsexual in extremely profound ways. “The transsexual body is an unnatural body,” she says, “…It is flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than which it was born.” I have been hyper-fixated on this concept since discovering my own transsexuality and I could not agree more. But much like transgender is to transsexual, why not push the boundary further? Why be unnatural when you can be supernatural? Preternatural? Extraordinary? To augment oneself to perfection. To reach a level of divinity only capable through self-made creation. This is where my love for the alchemist began. 

As transsexuals do we not toe the line between scientists and sorcerers, ever in pursuit of physical perfection? To transform one substance into another? Matter cannot be created nor destroyed but it can be transmuted. We become monsters, or in Stryker’s explanation, heralds of our own extraordinary creation.

While carving, sewing, and transforming your body is perhaps the closest to divinity I can imagine, there is always the scrutinizing eye of the world upon you. In embodying what lies beyond the realm of normalcy comes the onlookers probing for answers. To be transsexual is to be spectacle – for better or for worse. You walk through the world always on display, always looked at but never seen; this is visibility versus legibility. In the space between the two, I find my transgender rage. Always listened to, but never heard. Always known, but never understood. In this violence, I find my transsexual body an abject one constrained by the world’s subjectivity and “…limited by its signification.”

I could spend forever talking about what enrages me about my own transsexual embodiment, but I’d like to end on a positive note. I am a monster in all aspects and retellings of the word. But I am a monster of my own creation. In some strange way, I am both Frankenstein and his monster. Creator and created. Alchemist and Rebis. And I will continue to create. 

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Male/Female: To be or Not to Be

After reading Dean Spade Mutilating Gender essay I am baffled and saddened. It seems as if gender binary is causing more strife in society than one cares to recognize or admit. Why does every entity in life need to be categorized in order to be accepted? Due to the ancient history of gender roles/identity and my new achievement of joining Biologist I am sure the discovery of karyotyping is throwing a wrench in the system. Continue reading →